Infected incision after operation…

[spotty_pony2]

Horse had laparoscopy to diagnose liver problem about 5 weeks ago now. He had the staples taken out 10 days post operation and yesterday a small round lump appeared near one of the incisions which tbh I initially thought was a fly bite as the others have both got similar. Today it had got bigger, grown hot and produced a small amount of pus. Vet is coming tomorrow to scan and potentially lance it if it’s an abscess.

Just concerning it’s taken 5 weeks to appear, I can understand in the first few days after but the incisions were completely healed over so hoping it’s not coming from the liver.

Anyone had a similar thing happen ?

 

[misst]

Not in a horse but in humans. Sometimes it's quite a superficial infection due to non dissolved internal sutures causing irritation or a tiny superficial abscess. Often they come to a head, discharge and settle so I'm sure similar can happen with animals x hope it goescwell tomorrow.

 

[BurntontheoutsideTurkey]

One of my shares had a large abdominal puncture wound and laceration, came home after 6 weeks in Rossdales and ultimately returned to ridden work with no apparent problems. Almost a year later a lump appeared at the middle of his T-shaped scar, grew quickly to the size of a tennis ball, burst, and he never had another problem. Small things can take a while to work their way out sometimes.

 

[paddi22]

I had a horse this happened to a few times in a row and it was the wound cleaning itself out, vet said it can even by tiny stuff like dust off their gloves. access burst, kept it clean and it healed fine

 

[spotty_pony2]

I had a horse this happened to a few times in a row and it was the wound cleaning itself out, vet said it can even by tiny stuff like dust off their gloves. access burst, kept it clean and it healed fine

Hopefully that will be the case with him too Vet is just concerned because his report from the biopsy says he has adhesions on his liver and so wanted to talk to the surgeon first before lancing it in case it’s a more serious job. Hopefully not and it’s just a bit of dirt working its way out like you say. Vet is coming this afternoon. It’s hot to the touch this morning and possibly more swollen but should be able to be sorted later today. How did you clean it? Obviously you can’t poultice which is a pain! did you have to syringe something into it?

 

[limestonelil]

Slightly off topic but my daughter's caesarean scar suddenly went gunky in one place, weeks afterwards. Had looked fine until it didn't.
Quickly cleared up with antibiotics.
Hope it clears up quickly for you.
Just seen misst's post above which explains situation. Love HHO.

 

[spotty_pony2]

Good news! Vet scanned and cannot see an abscess so thinks it is either a little pocket of fluid or actually some fluid from the muscle fibres as they are mending. Either way he isn’t overly concerned and he has given him Danilon and antibiotics. Poor boy is on his liver medication and now these too! Vet took his blood test though today instead of next week to see if his liver enzymes have returned to normal so fingers crossed this is the case.

 

[SO1]

I hope his liver gets better. Bert also has a liver problem and thankfully his GGT has gone down from 147 to 100 after 2 weeks on Hepalyte. Vet didn't suggest biopsy.

 

[spotty_pony2]

I hope his liver gets better. Bert also has a liver problem and thankfully his GGT has gone down from 147 to 100 after 2 weeks on Hepalyte. Vet didn't suggest biopsy.

We had two biopsies as the first one showed nothing but bloods said different. His liver has attached to his diaphragm and was very small they said so he went into hospital for a laparoscopy. Surprisingly he is only a 2/14 so mild liver damage and it isn’t toxic related thank goodness. They don’t know what caused it but think it could be immune mediated. We went for biopsy as wanted to rule out it being toxic related - particularly as we make our own hay. What caused yours and how severe is his?

 

[SO1]

We had two biopsies as the first one showed nothing but bloods said different. His liver has attached to his diaphragm and was very small they said so he went into hospital for a laparoscopy. Surprisingly he is only a 2/14 so mild liver damage and it isn’t toxic related thank goodness. They don’t know what caused it but think it could be immune mediated. We went for biopsy as wanted to rule out it being toxic related - particularly as we make our own hay. What caused yours and how severe is his?

Bert has not had a biopsy so we don't know what has caused it.

Vet thinks hay possibly but no other horses seem to have it though they have not been blood tested recently. YO has now changed hay supplier since Bert's diagnosis.

I think possibly a supplement I gave him on advice of saddle fitter last year that had comfrey in. I queried this with the company who produce the suppliment as comfrey as I had some concerns about long term use but of course they said fine. Though he was not on the supplement when when his behaviour deteriorated and had not been for about 6 months as I took him off due to being worried about comfrey.

His behaviour also deteriorated not long after they moved fields into a field he has never been in before so could have been something he ate in that field. The horses are no longer in that field but it has been used for many years.

This is an area where liver issues are apparently not uncommon. There is another yard locally where all the horses had an issue and apparently a couple died and they tested everything and never found out what the cause was. One of the other liveries said she was on a different yard and her horse had a problem. One of the instructors says she knows of another 2 cases. Plus massage therapist said he heard on Facebook of several more cases on different yards possibly linked to hay.

When I first got vet out to check Bert due to his behaviour he did say it could be liver. He felt ulcers, some subtle lameness he could not see or liver as starting points. So we started with bute trial, then scoped for ulcers which was clear. X rayed hind hooves to check hoof balance and they were fine and then did blood test and found the raised liver enzymes.

Quite a few horses had a virus at the start of the year and Bert was one of the few that did not get it. Several horses were blood tested at the time and none of them had a liver problem.

Bert last had a blood test in Feb 2024 and was fine then.

What caused you to investigate for liver disease? What symptoms? Bert didn't have any weight loss or lack of appetite but became very nappy under saddle with side bitting and not wanting to turn worse on the right which is where the liver is and not wanting to go into trot. Fine on the lunge to start with but got worse on the lunge too coming into the middle, pawing the ground.

He is started with 60ml of Hepalyte for 16 days then blood test showed improvement now on 30ml for one month and retest.

Vet said he had seen much worse cases than Bert even though Bert's GGT was three times what it should be.

 

[spotty_pony2]

We are currently investigating a chronic skin condition on the legs. After lots of other things we decided to run bloods to check liver function and found it just by chance. Vet is adamant they are not linked but the medication he is on is meant to treat skin conditions too. Apart from that there are no other symptoms and we wouldn’t have know had we not decided to blood test.

Have you started riding again yet?

 

[SO1]

We are currently investigating a chronic skin condition on the legs. After lots of other things we decided to run bloods to check liver function and found it just by chance. Vet is adamant they are not linked but the medication he is on is meant to treat skin conditions too. Apart from that there are no other symptoms and we wouldn’t have know had we not decided to blood test.

Have you started riding again yet?

Interesting.

Yes rode yesterday and again this evening despite saddle fit not being perfect he has not napped once and gone really nicely into trot. A huge difference to how he was before despite the heat. I have kept trot to a minimum due to saddle and because he is still in the recovery stage where he might feel more tired or unwell. So I just seeing how his transitions are and they so light of the leg and effortless he doesn't want to trot for long so we do about three quarters of the long side of the school and then walk a bit and try again.

Are the legs white as photosensitivity can be caused by liver problems. Bert thankfully does not have any photosensitivity and hopefully we caught it early enough to prevent that as especially it has been so hot.

What was your horses GGT score?

 

[spotty_pony2]

Interesting.

Yes rode yesterday and again this evening despite saddle fit not being perfect he has not napped once and gone really nicely into trot. A huge difference to how he was before despite the heat. I have kept trot to a minimum due to saddle and because he is still in the recovery stage where he might feel more tired or unwell. So I just seeing how his transitions are and they so light of the leg and effortless he doesn't want to trot for long so we do about three quarters of the long side of the school and then walk a bit and try again.

Are the legs white as photosensitivity can be caused by liver problems. Bert thankfully does not have any photosensitivity and hopefully we caught it early enough to prevent that as especially it has been so hot.

What was your horses GGT score?

No his legs are black (he’s a friesian) so I know that makes it less likely it’s photosensitivity but not impossible. Bloods have come back this morning with a great improvement! GGT level and bile acid level are much lower so that’s great news! I don’t actually know the exact number but I’ll try and get a copy from the Vets. He finished his meds on Wednesday so now I just need to find out whether he needs to continue with more meds or just continue with milk thistle and then retest in another month or so. I’ll happily keep him on the milk thistle long term if needed. I had started riding but after the incision opening slightly and only just closed I’m giving him a few days to make sure it’s properly healed again.

Interestingly the legs are better than they were we are also using another line of treatment for his legs but I’ll be amazed if the medicine isn’t helping in its own way with it being used to treat skin disorders too.

 

[honetpot]

Horse had laparoscopy to diagnose liver problem about 5 weeks ago now. He had the staples taken out 10 days post operation and yesterday a small round lump appeared near one of the incisions which tbh I initially thought was a fly bite as the others have both got similar. Today it had got bigger, grown hot and produced a small amount of pus. Vet is coming tomorrow to scan and potentially lance it if it’s an abscess.

Just concerning it’s taken 5 weeks to appear, I can understand in the first few days after but the incisions were completely healed over so hoping it’s not coming from the liver.

Anyone had a similar thing happen ?

Sometimes fluid just leaks from the surrounding tissues, and can not be absorbed back internally, so eventually it collects and works it way out, finding any small gap to go through until it reaches the skin.#

 

[spotty_pony2]

Timesome fluid just leaks from the surrounding tissues, and can not be absorbed back internally, so eventually it collects and works it way out, finding any small gap to go through until it reaches the skin.#

Yes, this was the case here - it had come from the muscle tissue. It appeared two days after he had been leaping about when turned out in the arena though so I think he may have overdone it a little bit!